What do you do during labs?

College Majors Engineering Majors
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<p>Hi, I'm a senior in high school interested in computer and electrical engineering. I'm still undecided which one I might do, but that's not what I'm here for. I have a question about labs in college. I was looking through a schedule for classes just to get the general gist of when my classes will be next year. I noticed a lot of classes have labs. What do you do in an electrical engineering lab for instance? What about Chemistry lab? Is it just like labs in AP classes in high school, but more advanced? Do you just do experiments? What about computer science labs?</p>

<p>Thanks</p>

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<p>Computer science labs are programs that you write, no need to physically attend a lab.</p>

<p>Intro electronics labs involve making circuits on breadboards. AC circuits, DC circuits, digital circuits, etc. I’m taking an electronics class right now and so far we have done things like full wave rectifiers, RLC circuits, voltage multipliers, and we go as high and simple microcontroller/microprocessor (though I don’t know what that lab will entail).</p>

<p>An intro to engineering sequence I took had a lot of different labs. We built a model bridge that had to fit certain parameters, we did basic electronics like using LEDs as a binary display, we did MATLAB programs.</p>

<p>I took an error analysis class where we made programs to simulate distributions of things, we used a photon counter with a LabVIEW program to identify various radioactive samples.</p>

<p>In introductory physics labs we did things like set up pulleys and time their fall, use force meters on moving objects (little carts, objects on frictionless tracks), used position sensors on oscillators, calculate projectile landing spots and then test our predictions with ball guns, optics experiments with lenses and mirrors, diffraction and refraction demonstrations, standing waves with sound, tuning forks to create interference waves, etc.</p>

<p>A lot of these labs involved getting data via observation (sometimes the observation would be performed by a computer), writing it all down, and making reports. Sometimes the reports were straightforward, just answer a bunch of questions, crunch some numbers, find the error on a measurement and how different our measurement was from theory. Sometimes, the lab reports are on the order of ten pages long or more, have multiple activities, need spreadsheets or graphs, etc.</p>

<p>Usually you will not be allowed in the lab unsupervised, but the class I’m taking now lets me get in the building and the room with my id card, 24/7.</p>

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<p>Thanks for that information! I really appreciate it.</p>

<p>So just to clear this one part up, computer science labs are writing programs by yourself at home? There is a time slot for the lab though, sot that’s why I’m confused. Do they just put that time slot there because they have to or do you occasionally meet?</p>

<p>Thanks again</p>

4

<p>For an intro level CS class it’s probably a time where you’d be expected to sit at a computer and work on a program while a TA is available to answer questions and help troubleshoot whatever your issues are.</p>

<p>The requirements of a lab for science/engineering depends on the department and class. Sometimes labs are similar to high school where you’re given everything and just expected to perform a few steps. Sometimes it’s a little more involved. I had a class where we had a single lab assignment for the entire semester. We were given some chunks of steel with their composition and the entire description (less than a page) summed up to, make one as hard as possible, make one as soft as possible, make one as tough as possible. We were expected to spend the semester’s lab time to learn how to do various processes to steel, which would be appropriate for our alloys, and why.</p>

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<p>For a cs class, the alotted lab time is when you will use the school’s computers with your prof or ta present. It may require attendance for certain exercises. I had a year-long intro sequence on component-based software design that had required weekly in-lab mini-labs. We had to have a piece of code ready to be inserted in a program we wouldn’t know about until the lab begun. Then we’d test it. If you did your job correctly you’d be out of there in ten minutes.</p>

<p>We also had bigger main labs that were to be worked on outside of class, often in pairs.</p>

<p>Other cs classes I’ve had would alot lab times but attendance was not required, it was just for people who wanted help. Often the first lab session will be required so you learn the system. UNIX/Linux is common and a lot of students either aren’t familiar with it or haven’t configured remote login on their own PCs.</p>